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Dessert

Layer-cakes

Layer Cakes are a two-layered cake with silver and gold parts, finished with currant jelly and icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Layer-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batters

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter for the silver part.

  3. Add the sweet milk and flour, then fold in the egg whites.

  4. For the gold part, cream the sugar and butter, then add the sweet milk.

  5. Mix in the flour, baking powder, egg yolks, whole egg, allspice, and cinnamon.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the silver and gold mixtures into prepared cake pans and bake until done.

  2. Once baked, turn the cakes upside down on paper and spread currant jelly on one.

  3. Stack the other cake on top, cut lengthwise and across into six equal parts.

Ice and decorate

  1. Ice the pieces with white icing, smoothing the edges.

  2. Use a paper horn to decorate with dark chocolate icing.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Trap air when folded in, helping the batter rise and giving a light texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness, colour and tenderness to the gold batter.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cakes to rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold air that makes the cake light. Stirring them vigorously or overmixing deflates that air, leaving a denser, heavier cake.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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